23 August 2006

I'm a Reader

I pinched this from Ryan aka Sheep Diaries aka My Murderous Twin. To quote a friend who visited my home once, "Y'all are the most readinist people I ever met!"

Book that:

Changed my life?
Camilla by Madeline L'Engle. I wrote a book report for 9th grade honors English. My favorite teacher of all time gave me an A+, but left a comment to see her after class about this review. She sat me down and told me I was an excellent writer. I wanted to be a writer from that point on. But, more to the point of its life-changing qualities, the story is gray, rainy, about a 15 year-old girl waking up to herself, to her parents' imperfections, to her best friend's madness and passion, to her new love's madness and passion. She wakes up to a beautiful new world. Lolita also changed my life. It's that innocence that never lets go, the painful beauty of awakening to yourself. I can't get enough of it. And also, too, Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson. This is the most beautiful love story I've ever known, disassembling and reassembling the intricacies of physical and spiritual love and disintigration. Oh, the grapes have withered on the vine this summer, but this was not always so. And "Why is the most unoriginal thing we could ever say to another person is still the thing we long to hear? 'I Love You,' is always in quotations.

I've read more than once?
Camilla is a hot tea cold night nostalgia comfort. Lolita and Written on the Body bring new poetry each and every time. Laurie Colwin's The Dangerous French Mistress collection of short stories -- fine, solid, visceral emotions of strange and everyday characters and their inner-worlds. Ah, and yep, The Secret History by Donna Tartt is so fantastic. And. Catcher in the Rye. And. Lovely Bones. And. Bad Behavior short story collection by Mary Gaitskill. If you ever think you're living an ugly, selfish, dirty little life, you'll feel better once you've finished this collection.

I'd want on a desert island?
The Complete Works of Anne Sexton. And some David Sedaris to laugh so I don't feel like killing myself. And The Heart is a Lonely Hunter so I can have some good company.

Made me laugh?
Me Talk Pretty One Day and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. I laugh until I cry. He is so fucking hilarious.

Made me cry?
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Glory in the Morning are unabashed tear-jerkers of the sweetest sort.

I wish I'd written?
I would have written The Lovely Bones. I promise. I feel a kinship with Alice Seibold.

I wish had never been written?
Well, The Da Vinci Code.

I'm currently reading?
I am currently reading Autobiography of a Face, a memoir by Lucy Grealy accounting her cancer and the repercussions her jaw removal had on her face.

I've been meaning to read?
All of Leslie Marmon Silko's works. And The Idiot by Dostyevsky.

22 August 2006

since when were you so generous and inarticulate?

i am missing my elvis costello music. all my records and casettes are perhaps still in georgia, long since gone, and cd's that are left skip in all the wrong places. i am trying to keep sadness from sinking in too deeply, so will probably go to sleep soon. at least i don't feel violent today. and, summer is late, moving into fall, dragging like a tired, milky-eyed old dog, and fall is far too far away, and i miss my dad. i want to watch some movies with him and listen to his languid commentary, read a bit by soft light, and drift to bed comforted and content. tender nostalgia overtakes me, summer nights always get me funny. that's all.